Merry Christmas

Just a quick note from us to wish all our readers, and fellow players and bloggers a very merry christmas! We hope you all have a fantastic time, and a great new year!

Look forward to playing more LOTRO and more blogging in 2012!

BW

Adam and Emma

Current Cosmetic Outfits: Part 4

Inspired by a couple of the new cosmetic pieces in Isengard, I have been outfitting a few of my characters with a different cosmetic appearance utilising some of these new pieces. One of the first was my Dwarf Hunter; Tyri, in an attempt to revitalise my interest in a class I have always found a bit dull. So armed with a wardrobe full of items and a head full of ideas I set to work.

The intention here was to create a heaving looking skirmisher. Whilst Dwarves were not all plate mail, then were still a doughty and hardy race, well armoured in battle. Sadly outfitting dwarves can be very tough, many players who do make cosmetic outfits are into otherworldly elves, or cute hobbits, and this means cosmetics are often geared towards those body forms, particularly the light and medium armours. There are many many issues of clipping or distorition of designs due to stretchin with armour on dwarves, clipping particularly on gloves, cloaks, and helmets that completely remove their beards, and in addition to this the light and medium armour are often very unflattering. It often takes some time bugging all the faults. However we are getting a bit of an eye for finding something appropriate that will work, and I think in this I have a very nice compromise.

I decided green would be the theme, and Rivendell Green is a very rich dark colour, and I set about making him look armoured, but not plated and heavily set like a tank. Given the above issues with leather armour, this is a pretty tough job, but was great fun and here are the results.

The chest piece is the Forged Iron Dunlending Hauberk, in Rivendell Green, a Heavy Armour ROI quest reward placed in the wardrobe to allow Tyri to wear it. The chain mail underneath and the overcoat make him look suitably armoured for war, but with more of a focus on being light weight and agile.

The Boots are Reinforced Leather Dunlending Boots, dyed Gold, Medium Armour ROI quest reward. These have a slighly armour plated look to them, adding to the armoured feel.

The Gloves are the Marchwardens level 58 medium armour gloves, dyed Rivendell Green. These add a little more hunters flair, and some nice highlights.

Shoulders are the heavy armour engraved iron pauldrons ROI quest reward dyed Rivendell Green, again add to the armoured appearance without being over bearing.

Hood is the travellers hood from the LOTRO store dyed Rivendell Green. Hoods are something I always associate with dwarves, more so even than rangers, due to having read the hobbit first when I was very young. So if any head gear is worn it has to be a heavy helmet, or a hood!

Back/Quiver is the Fancy Elven Quiver from the Anniversary Gift-Box, again dyed Rivendell Green. Cloaks I always imagine could impinge on a woodsman (having run through a wood in a cloak myself I can confirms they catch on anything and everything and often unblanace you).

The quiver and the gloves have the undyable yellow portions on them, and when this is the case I think it’s often better to use that as an accent colour and make a feature of it, rather than ignore it, hence Tyri’s yellow boots!  I think they are quite fun too, they remind me of Tom Bombadill!

So there he is fully armoured and tooled up. It did help revive my interest in Hunters, I have played him a little more, and he is now 61, and ready to start the assault on Mirkwood. I think I caught the balance right between armour, and utility, and I have to say I think with the combination of the races form andn outfits available, and the ethos of a dwarf hunter, outfitting one surely has to be the toughest job in LOTRO!

thanks for reading

Adam

The Fleet Footed Goat

I have been particularly lucky in the lotteries lately and was very excited to see that I had won the new store exclusive mount on one of my main characters, Haki. And if I do say so myself, the Fleet Footed Goat is absolutely stunning. I know that I have said in the past that I objected to the 2k Turbine Points for the store exclusive mounts, but with this one I could have been seriously tempted. I could still be persuaded to treat some of my other alts to it. It’s very eye-catching in its simplicity – all over bright, pure white, with elegant metal wings and spiral motif, accentuated with what appears to be turquoise gemstones. Just the ticket for the heir to the Khazad Guard, descended from the Broadbeam Dwarf Lords of old. Adam was extremely jealous when he saw it, especially as he entered me in the lotteries when I was having a late sleep on Sunday morning. First I knew of it was when I checked the lotteries at lunchtime and saw that Haki had won. I know for a fact that if Adam doesn’t win it in a lottery he will be purchasing this for Izbaruk. Like the other store exclusives it is one of the fastest and sturdiest mounts in-game, with 68% run speed and 250 morale, and like all store exclusives, this goat will only be available for a limited time. I’m not sure when this will be going live in the store, but my guess would be soon. My advice is to keep checking those lotteries, and in the meantime go grind some TP’s, because this would make a perfect christmas present for all your favourite alts!

I could stretch this out a bit more, but I’m sure you all want to see some screenshots, so here goes!

As you can see it is truly gorgeous!

Good Luck!

Emma